Paper bag holder



Sept. 1, 1942. J. E; sAPP ETI'AL PAPER BAG HOLDER Filed Sept. 18, 1941 Patented Sept. '1, 1942 OFFICE PAPER. BAG HOLDER James Edward Sapp and Mildred Sapp, Bainbridge, Ga.

Application September 18, 1941, Serial No. 411,398

3 Claims.

This invention relates to paper bag holders for stores, which may be conveniently supported or suspended, and from which bags, one at a time, may readily be withdrawn without an additional bag being inadvertently extracted.

Paper bags are ordinarily supported in a bag holder, in stacks in upright position, with the folded bottoms facing outward. To withdraw a bag from the conventional bag holder it is grasped by the folded bottom and pulled in an outward direction. Paper bags usually have a longitudinal pasted midseam, and in humid weather it frequently happens that mucilage exuding from this seam sticks contiguous bags together, particularly at thetop where they lie closest, so that when the front bag of the stack is pulled out the next bag comes with it, due to their adhesion near the top.

One of the objects of the present invention is to provide a paper bag holder constructed so as to give the front bag a lateral twist as it is drawn out, so as to break any adhesive bond which may exist between the front bag and the next one underlying.

The specific object of the invention is to provide a wire bag holder formed with a back frame, a cradle at the bottom for supporting and retaining the base of a stack of bags, with the bottoms of the bags folded forwardly and the bottom of the first bag exposed to permit its withdrawal, and including resilient arms upstanding from the cradle at opposite sides, having angular free ends overlying the opposite lateral edges of the stack and cooperating with the back frame to resiliently press the stack, regardless of the progressively increasing thinness of the stack, through depletion, said arms being of unequal length whereby when the foremost bag is pulled outwardly by the bottom, the lateral edges form with the plane of the next bag underlying, acute angles of different steepness Whose apices are determined by the points of pressure of the angular ends of said arms against the stack, giving the foremost bag a twist as it is pulled out, breaking any adhesion which may be present between the top portions of the front bag and the next bag adjacent thereto.

Other objects of the invention will appear as the following description of a preferred and practical embodiment thereof proceeds:

In the drawing which accompanies and forms a part of the following specification and throughout the several figures of which the same characters of reference have been employed to designate identical parts:

Figure 1 is a front elevational view of a bag holder embodying the inventive principle, the foremost bag being shown partially withdrawn;

Figure 2 is a side view in elevation;

Figure 3 is a perspective view of the bag holder.

Referring now in detail to the several figures, the bag holder as shown is of bent wire construction, comprising a back frame, in general designated by the reference character I, including a top transverse member 2 having an intermediate loop 3, for suspending the bag holder from a nail or hook. The back frame also includes the downwardly extending and preferably parallel side members 4 which lie planiform with the transverse member 2, enabling the bag holder to lie fiat against a wall.

At their bottom ends the side members 4 have the forwardly extending portions 5, the length of which is equal to the thickness of the full stack of bags which the bag holder is adapted to contain. The forwardly extending members 5 have upwardly directed end extensions 6. The members 5, together with the extensionsli and the lower parts of the members 4 constitute a cradle for the lower portion of the stack of bags, the bottoms of which bags are folded forwardly to lie in planes parallel with the bodies of the bags.

From the upper ends of the extensions 6 the Wire is bent to form the laterally extending portions 1 and then to form the upwardly extending arms 8. The length of the portions 1 is such as to place the arms 8 outside of the lateral edges of the stack of bags. The arms 8 are provided at their upper ends with the forward extensions 9 and terminate in the inwardly extending ends In which overlap the opposite lateral edges of the bags. The arms 8 are normally bent toward the back frame so as to exert resilient pressure against the stack of bags which is clampably supported between the back frame and the inwardly extending ends l0. As the thickness of the stack diminishes, due to depletion'by removal of the bags, the ends I0 continue to move inwardly through the resilience of the arms 8, continuing to press resiliently against the stack of bags.

One of the arms 8 is shorter than the other, so that the inwardly extending end of said shorter arm presses against the stack of bags at a lower point than does the inwardly extending end of the longer arm 8.

It will be understood from what has been said in the relation of the objects of the invention that bags frequently become stuck together adjacent the top. In the ordinary bag holder, a bag is pulled out with even pressure on both of its lateral edges, so that it comes down from the bag holder parallel to the underlying bag so that if the two bags are stuck together the underlying bag will be pulled out also. It is a nuisance to have to reinsert the inadvertently withdrawn bag into the bag holder.

By the present invention the unequal arms 8 are specifically provided to give the foremost bag a twist relative to the next bag underlying, as it is withdrawn, so as to break any adhesion which may exist between the two bags near the top. This twist is clearly indicated in Figure 1 by the relative inclined position of the top edge ll of the bag being withdrawn with respect to the edge l2 of the next underlying bag and all the other bags in the stack. This twist is imparted to the foremost bag in the following manner. In withdrawing the foremost bag it is grasped by the top edge I3 of its bottom and pulled outwardly in the direction of the arrow 11, shown in Figure 2. This pulls the body of the foremost bag outwardly away from the plane of the next underlying bag below the points at which it is clamped by the ends H] of the resilient arms 8. Above these points the body of the foremost bag slides downwardly against the next underlying bag.

Because of the unequal length of the arms 8, the lateral edge M of the bag being withdrawn will make a larger acute angle with the plane of the underlying bag than will the lateral edge l4, since the apices of said acute angles are determined by the points of pressure of the respective ends II]. This results in a twisting being imparted to the bag being withdrawn, so. that it automatically inclines itself with respect to the stack in the manner illustrated in Figure 1, twisting itself loose from the adhesive bond which unites it to the next underlying bag, so that the foremost bag alone is withdrawn and does not drag the next bag out with it,

In order to accentuate the twisting action of the bag holder, it is preferable to grasp the bottom of the bag at a point toward the short arm 9, for example, at the point b in Figure 1.

It will be understood. to those skilled in the art that the specific shape and details of construction of the bag holder, as shown, are by way of example and that variations in the structure and arrangement of parts may be made without transcending the scope of the invention defined in the appended claims.

What we claim as our invention is:

1. Paper bag holder comprising a frame including a cradle portion for supporting the base of a stack of bags, and a back portion, and resilient arms upstanding from the-cradle portion, spaced apart a distance wider than the width of the stack of bags, having inwardly directed ends lapping the front of the stack a short distance inward from the opposite lateral edges, said arms being resiliently biased toward said back portion for gripping the stack of bags, and being of unequal length whereby the inwardly directed ends determine the apices of acute angles of different width, between the respective edges of the foremost bag and the plane of the next underlying bag when the bottom of the foremost bag is pulled out in the act of removal, resulting in a twist of the foremost bag so that its top edge assumes an angular relation to the top edge of the underlying bag.

2. Paper bag holder comprising a frame including a cradle portion for supporting the base of a stack of bags, and a back portion, and resilient arms upstanding from the forward part of said cradle portion, spaced aparta distance wider than the width'of the back portion, having inwardly directed free ends lapping the front of the stack a short distance inward from the opposite lateral edges, said arms being resiliently biased toward said back portion for gripping said stack of bags.

3. Paper bag holder as claimed in claim 1, said frame including the resilient arms, being made of wire.

' MILDRED SAPP.

JAMES EDWARD SAPP. 

